Startup Uses Sound as Energy Source

Nirvana hopes to power the future

Receive the latest the-city updates in your inbox

A leading national energy expert has praised a local startup for its potential to use sound to change the energy game.

"Until today, I had never encountered a genuinely 'new' way of producing electric power that also made sense outside of a research laboratory," writes World Alliance for Decentralized Energy's Director of Markets and Regulation William Pentland in Forbes.

He's talking about Nirvana Energy Systems, a Portola Valley and Ohio-based startup from former Stanford professors that's using thermoacoustics to convert sound waves into energy to develop a device that could power homes and offices.

The story offers limitles potential when trying to think of what the future might be like in this respect. Music is truly electric.